12 Week Plan

Drawings scanned from the margins of my copy of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

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In 1996 I did the The Artist's Way for the first time. I repeated it in 1997 and since then have often used the idea of a programme of this sort as a way of organising my time and activities. Most of these subsequent programmes were ones that I tested, using the self-test methods I learnt from HK. They were mostly quite different from the original.

On Saturday, to my surprise, I tested that I should start a new programme this Wednesday and, also to my surprise, it is much closer to the AW format than usual. Like the AW it is split into 12 sections each 1 week long. I've also grouped the sections into 4 sets of 3 weeks. These are the themes:

1. Earth - Autumn
   
• Week 1: 15 Nov - Safety
  
• Week 2: 22 Nov - Identity
• Week 3: 29 Nov - Power
2. Fire - Christmas
• Week 4: 6 Dec - Integrity
• Week 5: 13 Dec - Possibility
• Week 6: 20 Dec - Abundance
3. Water - Ice
• Week 7: 27 Dec - Connection
• Week 8: 3 Jan - Strength
• Week 9: 10 Jan - Compassion
4. Air - Wind
• Week 10: 17 Jan - Creativity
• Week 11: 24 Jan - Embody
• Week 12: 31 Jan - Reception
  

Half-way through, I will retest to see if I need to change or stop this programme. For those of you familiar with the AW weeks you'll see that the first nine are the same except I'm not calling them "Recovering a Sense of whatever". And the last three have concepts that come up during those three weeks in the AW though are not in the titles.

• Although these weeks are inspired by the AW I will not be doing morning pages, instead I've decided to do morning doodles.
• Every week I'll have an outing somewhere as my artist's date - I don't get out just for the fun of it nearly enough.
• Also every week I'll test which exercises to do, some may come from the AW but I've got plenty of other sources for suggestions.

One of the things that I really gained from doing the AW was a much greater appreciation of synchronicities.

Ever since I've been noticing them more and smiling at them.

So the first thing to notice is that Christmas is coming in the week called Abundance - a neat consequence of starting now.

On Saturday after I'd tested this programme I sold a spare copy I had of Julia Cameron's The Vein of Gold through my Amazon marketplace books. I'd bought this as a follow-up to the artist's way but never really got into it. In fact I'd got two copies and I'm only selling one so I can still check it for exercises.

And as a further synchronicity on Sunday we had a leaflet through our door on the North Bristol Art Trail 2006. Apparently this has been going every year for the last 5 years but I've never been round it and never seen a leaflet for it. I'd say I'd never heard of it but I find that hard to believe!

They provide a map with all the open studios on it and we are bang slap in the middle of the map - when we come to sell our house I'll be able to advertise it as in the Heart of Art (Sorry GG I had to reuse your pun!).

This year it is running from Friday 24th - Sunday 26th November 2006 - bang slap in the middle of the week I've just labelled Identity.

Below is the odd little picture I'd drawn in 1996 to illustrate prayers being answered through synchronicities. I have no idea what the foot is about... a variation on the hand of God perhaps or maybe its from Monty Python's Flying Circus...